trembling air runs through ripples of melodious ascent, till on the highest octave it seems to triumph in the consummation of some ineffable longing, and passes beyond cognizance in the ecstacy of its own music. It was one of those moments, tranquil from the very depth and transcending tenderness of joy, when desire almost passes into possession when the so far distant star appears graspable by the intensity of our gaze upon it: when by an identification how inexpressibly delightful, Faith has become the substance of what it hopes for. XL-Was it so indeed ? 'You seem to see the palace ' of Desiderata', the words with which Désirée broke this reverie, left me uncertain: I was startled, not as often, when another speaks our own thoughts, but that she did not speak them. The time had come; yet I must, I knew, hasten thence first for decision of certain material circumstances (not requiring record here,) in England. I too would part on this holy hill from my Desiderata, to return and make her mine more truly. Taking leave at once where we stood, the blue riddle of Désirée's eyes on mine, and her blithe farewell the last sound I heard, I retraversed the well-known way. Sharing in the decisiveness of my determination, this seemed but a moment's journey to England: I need not give it more detail. Then, writing a few words-and how few contained all, I wondered—as if through some strange spell, chased by self from self, I hastened across the farther sea on a mission which could not be declined to Ireland. For there, after various revolutions of fortune, our old family nurse had made a final settlement in the city of Cashel; she was ill, begged a visit from one of her children,' and several reasons concurrently determined me to obey the summons. Some days must pass before Désirée's reply, and it would be a comfort to speak at last and share hopes with a friend so faithful. For deeply convinced that to take counsel, in such matters at least, is cowardice, I had hitherto been silent to all-but I had dared the conclusive deed now; I might justly seek the reward of sympathy. There is no necessity however to record the words and experiences of a visit, only memorable to me because it fell at a season so critical. With many wise sayings, many homely phrases, texts, and childly endearments, and womanly tears, this aged early friend listened to my story delighted. Need I say she approved all her nurseling had done; thought me right in delay, and right in action; gently clapped her hands at learning the letter was despatched; that she held my triumph secure; that in her judgment it was Désirée's happy fortune deserved envy? Thus my last images of light and hope are strangely blended with recollections of that ancient capital; with the furrowed features, and worn hands, and low voice of one who now knows how far the humble confidence of her own faith was surely founded. I may perhaps never visit Cashel again; but never, I suppose, shall forget the last evening there, as the sun melted down into ruby haze behind the purple rock, and great cathedral, the square castletower of old troublous times, the battlemented chancel; nor, with these remembrances, the last consolations of this aged saint. Ready now to start for England, and find there the words of final solution, I expressed some natural, I hoped not foolish, fears. She looked up, laying her hands on mine, and laughing blithely as she pointed out the road homewards, Go, go', she said, like the saint who consoled the mother of Augustine, trust in God; it 'cannot be that He will bring the cry of so many years to 'nothing'. 6 THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM. BOOK III. I Meanwhile, round which of the many noble buildings of London, ignorantly underrated from familiarity and from the vastness of our metropolital area, is human interest gathered in largest amount, and with most vital sympathy? Which, to the angels in guard over the world's capital, bears the most grandly pathetic significance? Not the stronghold of Caesar and of Conqueror, although within that spectral whiteness of turreted wall sovereigns have inaugurated their reign with exultation, and closed it in the agonies of discrowned dishonour; though girls and children, statesmen and prelates, have consecrated the spot with innocent blood, or ennobled it by final fortitude;-not the more than Cathedral Abbey, although within this alone amongst the sanctuaries of Europe, the kings of twenty generations sleep a sleep unbroken by the clarion of foreign foes, or the wild footsteps of intoxicated anarchy ;-not the halls where, as in a colossal and labyrinthine reliquary of human kind, the vestiges of man's creation darken the air with phantasmal forms, and load it with the mysterious voices of annihilated centuries. . . . . All these, indeed, in solemnity of interest far transcend any pomp or pro digality of words in which I might endeavour to give their significance expression. But there is one great building which, defying the employment of any poetical art in its notice, yet by that plain homeliness of name appeals to a deeper mode of poetry: for the General Post Office, to me at least (but I think with justice), has long appeared the most pathetic and representative of our civic monuments, the central heart of that human interest which, spread through a circuit almost illimitable, radiates round London. It is not that the granite flags, moss-stained here and there, or saddened with the yellow withering of interstitial grass, are conscious of the hurrying tread of the vast multitude, a nation indeed dispersed over the whole world, for whom, within the noble atrium, messages of love and desertion, wealth and ruin, death and life, are waiting their season; for during much of the day the great city contains few spots of profounder solitude. But this solitude itself, lying within the shadow of the vast Cathedral, and like the islands of the Nile or Niagara, almost impassive amidst a roar which has hardly paused for centuries, touched me when, returning to England after the visit described, a 'spirit in my feet' led me there first from the clamorous railway-more deeply through the double contrast thus presented; the tumult and trepidation of life without, and the heart-audible voices within, oracular of ten thousand destinies. Mine, too, I thought, did that lie here? Like a pilgrim at Delphi or Jerusalem, I could have bowed before the shrine with awe; and as I thought, I looked upwards with the look which is prayer to the Cross of gold That shines over city and river, -and O! thence onwards in fancy to the high crucifix above the Moselle valley, and Désirée standing beneath, and that last glance of confiding earnest eyes, whose message had seemed more than farewell. Now first I felt what it is to have cast oneself, like a child cradled in the arms of Fate, on the Unchangeable and the Irresistible. My destiny might be lying here, but less than royal prerogative would not unfold it to me before the morning: it might be lying here, and if so, Omnipotence itself, without miracle, could not now reverse it. II Othello was played that evening at a half-crowded and noisy theatre: in the autumnal absence of all friends. with whom I might deceive the hours, I went eagerly. This was a foolish resource. 6 Faith, half asleep' like Desdemona, to the tawdry Venice of the stage, and the declamation of so many passionate words fit only for whispering, alone in the crowd with thoughts of Désirée, when I heard If Heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite I'd not have sold her for it: -I laughed almost in irony. He, who against his 'soul's 'joy' endured, even for a moment or a metaphor, to set any earthly treasure in the balance, could have loved, I thought, but little. To gain the whole world, and lose one's own soul's Darling, what would it profit? I went in imagination from Cyprus and Venice to Verona, and, in Romeo's answer to Laurence, found a far homelier and higher passion, a something which seemed to speak all the immense yearning, the eager tenderness of such a crisis as mine, in language itself' deep as love': Come what sorrow can It cannot countervail the exchange of joy |